LANDLORDISM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 10, 29 June 1888, Page 7

LANDLORDISM.

The Melbourne Advocate of Jnne 2nd gives us a report of a public meeting on the Irish question held at Creswick, from which we take the following interesting and able speech : — Rev. Father Rogers moved the second resolution as follows: '• That this meetiDg sympathises with the sufferings of the poor and evicted tenant-farmers in Ireland, and that a list be openei at once to relieve their necessities." The rev. gentleman said -.—Allow me, in the first place, t" express the pleasure it me to be present at this meeting to-night. I regard the time as most appropriate for such a gathering and such a movement. I believe our people at Home are almost within sight of the goal of their eff jrt<, but on that account, as they have retched what I consider as the most critical a«? well as the crowning point of their long struggle, Irishmen all the world over should testify by their practical sympathy in even a more earnest and determined manner than ever before th<ur love for justice and right, their detestation of tyianny and oppression, and their regard for the honour of the old land that b^re them. There are certain recent phases in the struggle, to which I need not morp particularly rsfer, which render it imperative for us to show to the world our confldenee in the wisdom and capacity of the leaders— both clerical aud l*y — of the Irish people at Home. I think if ever there was a tttna when the hands of our people required S'rength-ning it is atjthe present crisis ; and I hope that thid will be only one of the rnanv me. tings held throughout the length and breadth of Austi&lia, to demonstrate that whatever measure* the guides of our people — the bishops aad clergy of the Irish Church, and the Parliamentary leaders of the Irish nation — may, in their wisdom and knowledge, agree upon and adopt hare our support and approval. But, to come to the resoludou, I need not say to yoa that of the many curses which have afflicted Ireland during the period of her connection with the sister Kingdom by far the greatest and most deadly is that of landlordism. In fact I am not aware that I should be departing from strict accuracy were T to say that it has been the fruitful cause of all her other misfortunes. To what may we the many famines that have desolated the land ? To what the appalling decrease in her population ? To what the many Coercion Acts that make iha name of liberty a hollow mockery on the lips of Kngland ? To what the impoverished aa t generally shiftless state of the Irish people, if not primarily to landlordism 1 Ah, yes I The landlords have been the vers effective foreign garrison in the country, and in iheir interests solely the country has been always ruled. Like a vampire, they have sacked the life-blood of the country. They hnve brooded over it as an intolerable incubus, paralysirg its energies and blighting all prosperity. But, why should I speak further in this strain? Doubtless, there may be some amongst you who have, in toeir own person il experience, felt the scourge of landlordism. At all events, I should think there are few who hail from Ireland —few who have dwelt any long time in that hapless land who are not familiar with the doings of those gentry. There are few who have live} long in Ireland who have not, s un • , time or oth-r, sien the cr >wbar brigade at work. For what part of Ireland is there from north to south, from east to west, where landlordism has not graven bitter memories — in roofless homesteads and scattered families and in the grass-grown mounds in the chu/chy.srd the graves of itß heart-broken vic-ims? Jlany ate the places to which one might aptly apply the words of the pDet : — " This is the forest primeval, but wh-rti are the heaMa > hit he :eath v Leaped like the roe when he hears in the woxilani th*> voice of t',e. hunter ? Men whose lives glided on like river-3 that water the woo Hand, Darkened by shadows of earth, but, reflecting an iaia<je of h -avi'ii. Waste are the pleasant farms, and the. farmers forever departed, Scattered like dust and leaves when the mighty wnds of October SeiM them and whirl them aloft, and scatter them ifir o'er the ocean " At all events I happen to come from a cmnty — Donegal— which Hcems to have received a double dose of the original eia of landlordism, and I know many places of which that description would be literally irue. You have heard of Glenveigh, the scene of Jo v m George Adair'w atrocities ; and Mr. Lyle, my worthy compatriot, whom I am proud to claim as a Donegal man, has taken goo 1 care that yon should not lose sight of Gweedore. Well, I kcow a large and beautiful tract of country in South-Western Donegal, where once a numerous and happy peasantry dwelt. Now, for miles and miles, it is a aheep-lrtck, without a farm-house within us borders. It was turned into a eh^ep-Lr ick to suit the landlords' profit. The memory of the eviction which took place there is etill fresh in the mindu of the people, and they tell of the many homesteads ruthlessly razed to the ground, of the old and decrepid, the young and the helpless, thi^wn out oa the roadside in the bitter winter weather. I wish I could speak of all this as v ikiug of the past — as Dothing rooiv than a hideous p'-mntabm of the imagination, but I am reminded by the words of the res >luuon that the work of the devil (as it has been happily By ed) goe« om righi merrily still. The landloris are like the Bourboi.s, t whom it wa« said, "They learn nothing, they f'Tkjet nothing"; only I hope the resemblance may be still further carried ou\ by the speedy relegation of landlordism amj'\g«t the institutions of the past, to be remembered as a relic of a bartmious age which, by some mischanc, drifted far into t he nineteenth centur < . Well, the landli rds are pursuing the sumo old heartless pol c> ? to. lay that they have always pursued ; and the 'Koglish Governm nt is supporting th«m aa it has always supported them. The Arrears' Bill which Mr. Paruell, the noble leader of the Irish people, introduced a short tiny a,ro for the relief of a large majority of the impoverished tenants, has been kickei out of the House by a brute majority, obedient, not to the voice of reason or i justice, but to the lasa of the Government whip. Ejectment nonces, j in the expressive phrase of that self-seeking Unionist— Mr. Kussul, the member for South Tyrone — are falling like snowflikes on-r the land, and in November will come the tug of war. Our aid then will be very opportune. There arc kopeful features in the present circum- | stances of the Irish tenantry, to which I would refer. First of tbes'j i is the fact that the peasantry of Ireland have been politically educated '

to an extent which we can hardly realise. Thav know *h«ir rights and are rasolved ro maintain thtm. Ther look no lonec in the landlord as a ki id of superior being, havin? the powjr of lif • and dsath, over them, bat they regard him as an unjust extortioner an 1 confiicator «f their industry ; ia most cai?g, far inferior to themselves in all ths essential tributes of manhood. They look npoi him as one to whom ihey trnve given many a fall, *ni whom tt^y mean, please Goi, to sweep, *s an institution, from the land which he h<w curssd so long. Again, they are confident in the efftoaey of the unconquerable PJ«n of Campaign. To this weapon w« may attribute it that the people were kept mtheir hom^slßst wint«r,and tilio the unprecodently crim«le»s state of the country. Had the landlords their own way evictions would hare taken place .. n au unparalleled scale. Th« people, in many cases, would have had recourao to the wildjusticeof revenge. This, together with tke draf onian Coercion Act and its drac mi >n administration, would hay« plunged the land into a stat* which must h%v« fille! ths heart of every tru« Irishman and lover of freedom the w >rld over with iuexpressible sorrow. Thank*, however, to the PUn of Campaign, and not to the Coercion Act, or the clemency of the landlords, the pnoole have maintained their peaceful attitude, thm showing to the world that the real criminals and law- Or «akc-g are the l»w-makers— the Government and the landlords, so that to mv mind the final act ia the drama should be the arrest of Salisbury. Balfour, and a few dozen of the landlords, and their incarceration, with hard labour on bread and watfr for a few yea's. It is all very well to theorist as to tne Plan of Oatnp^n— its justice or otherwise, but it is a wellknown axiom that desperate diseases require desperate remedies. The state of Ireland was desperate when the Plan of Campaign wu adopted. The people say that their individual exiitence — nay, more, treirevistence as <i nation— lepended upon the adoption of some such scheme, and like brave men, they adopted it. Besides, the plan has been fully juitifled by its results. In nearly every case the reductions made by the Land Courts were in excess of those demanded, under the Plan. The illustrious and patriotic Archbishop of Dublin, an authority on the land question, gave it a? hia opinion that the landlords should have gladly accepted the terms offered them, and that Messrs. Dillon and O'Brien were very reasonable indeed, in the carrying out of the plan. So much waa Dr. Dr. Walsh impressed with the justice of ihe plan, that he pmblicly blessed it on the occasion of hit visit to Coolgreany, the scene of recent barbarous evictions. There are two clergympn of my own native d.ncese, one of whom (Father Stephens) it was nay privilege to know and to associate with as my class-fellow and friend for seven years in the halls of Mivnooth College — these two clerwym^n n? tb3 diocess of Raphoe (Father tf'Faddvn and Father Stephens) are i i prison !for their advoo*cy of the Plan, and what they aro suffering for, and Dr. Walsh has blessed, I cannot help regarding as a good thmg. But, although the Irish tenants are fighting this battle under more favourable circumstances than of old, still we must remember that thty cannot gat on without the sinews of war. To us principally they look in their nee I — to their mare prosperous countrymen in America and Australia, and I feel suro that there is no occasion for me t » make a spajial app •il to you, as I don't consider you came here merely for the purpose of hearing speeches ; only I would say that, when the day of victory come*, and the sun of final triumph shines upon the banners of the Irish people —those banners so torn and frayed, so long upheld in the weary tru?crle — we, t )0, and all woo ha^e in an y way helped the causes with their mite, shall be partners in their triumph. Bach of us shall bo able to ippeat, in the words of the gifted dead singer, the sister of <Jhan.sn Stewart Parnell, the gifted leader of the Irish people : — " Oh ! my bro:hf r, I have also loved her in her loneliness and sorrow ; hct me join with you the jubilant procession ; Let me chant with you her story." I have much plevmre m moving the revolutiom which stands ia my nume.